On May 5th the Fragrance Foundation France announced the laureates of Les Parfums 2011 awards. Six awards were given out by the public, and… well, you know how it goes? You can fool some of the people some of the time?
That Belle d’Opium by Yves Saint Laurent won best feminine and Bleu by Chanel won best masculine nearly put me off my food.
Balenciaga Paris won best bottle for a feminine, which I can absolutely live with; Voyage by Hermès won best bottle for a masculine, which was totally deserved.
Best campaign for a feminine was awarded to Trésor in Love by Lancôme; for a masculine, to Force Biotherm Homme.
The Specialists’ Award narrowed down to three finalists:
L’Heure Fougueuse by Mathilde Laurent for Les Heures de Parfum by Cartier;
Nuit de Tubéreuse by Bertrand Duchaufour for L’Artisan Parfumeur
And the winner is… Like This by Mathilde Bijaoui for Etat Libre d’Orange
Like This, who’d started out an outsider in the debate, nabbed the award, which shows a definite bias towards perfumers named Mathilde, since Mathilde Laurent won both last year’s Specialists’ Award and Perfumers’ Award for La Treizième Heure, which was a serious handicap for nabbing another prize this year.
I spoke briefly with Mathilde Bijaoui who confirmed that Tilda Swinton had indeed been genuinely and deeply involved in the development of the perfume. Stay tuned for more on the topic…
In a near repeat performance of last year’s awards, the perfumers had at least one finalist in common with the specialists out of a 100-strong long list.
The Perfumers' Award finalists:
Like This by Mathilde Bijaoui for Etat Libre d’Orange
Oud Royal, Giorgio Armani
And the winner is… Womanity by Mane for Thierry Mugler, art-directed by Pierre Aulas
The Board of the Fragrance Foundation France also gave out an award to Romano Ricci for Juliette Has a Gun, though I’m not entirely certain whether it went out for Not a Perfume or to the brand itself – I admit I was so flabbergasted at that point I couldn’t catch what was being said onstage…
L'actu 
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Belle and Bleu? More like Bland and Bland! But the other awards seem fine. The niche finalists, how could one choose, all 3 are fantastic! So sad there's no photo, though...;-)
RépondreSupprimer-Marla
Marla, fascinating, isn't it, how the public headed straight for Blandland? I suspect the massive advertising campaigns had something to do with this.
RépondreSupprimerAnd, yes, it was quite difficult to pick a winner out of the three, though L'Heure Fougueuse had less of a chance because Mathilde won two awards last year. I do think it's her best work to date.
There'll be some photos knocking around somewhere, I suppose... Octavian wore a black velvet tux jacket and a bow tie, and wafted vintage Guerlain Kadine. I wore a black linen 60s-style shift with very, very serious cleavage and original formula Femme. He picked me up at home, just as though we were going to the prom, and much champagne was consumed... Belle and Bleu we were not.
Interesting...
RépondreSupprimerI still have not tried Like This, shame on me. Considering it won against such outstanding finalists, I am very keen now.
Thanks Denyse for the report, I am sure you and Octavian turned many heads!
Silvia
Silvia, at this stage, as I said above, it wasn't a matter of which perfume was the better of the three... But Like This garnered a lot of acclaim on the blogs and is certainly worth seeking out. Mathilde Bijaoui herself was wearing it yesterday and she had a gorgeous, warm sillage.
RépondreSupprimerDon't know if we turned heads, but we certainly fostered a lot of discussion, together and separately, narrowly avoiding a couple of diplomatic incidents! Though all in all it was a very good-natured affair and I enjoyed coming across several people I like and admire -- engaging in a "pulling faces" contest with Dominique Ropion at 2 AM (we couldn't hear each other over the music) is not something I'm likeky to forget.
My final assessment of Like This is that I'd LOVE to have it as a candle, but I didn't really want to wear it on my skin. I love immortelle notes, but it just skewed too foody for me, I think.
RépondreSupprimerIt sounds like a fun evening. I'd love to attend that shindig someday. And I'll bet you looked stunning.
Amy, to be frank, voting with my skin I'd have gone for both the two finalists, but pegging Like This for an atmospheric scent is pretty accurate since Tilda Swinton did want to carry the smell of her house with her.
RépondreSupprimerThat's a pretty interesting idea, smelling like your house, so if you're a very house-cozy person who travels a lot, you could bring it with you! Of course, in my case, with my House Full O' Males (Casa Testosterone?), ELd'O would have to come up with a melange of roasted meat, BBQ sauce, pickled jalapenos, unwashed gym socks, boogie boards, and Legos...oh, never mind.
RépondreSupprimer-Marla
Marla, this is what Tilda told Vogue at the launch:
RépondreSupprimer“They showed me it was possible to provide the smell of snow, the smell of mist, the smell of my grandfather’s greenhouse.” “Mathilde created it entirely to my completely random specifications. I said, ‘I want the scent of home in Scotland so I can smell my home while I’m traveling.’ We deconstructed it. It literally is my house. (...) Gingerbread—baking. Dogs. Greenhouses. Chicken feet. Children. Children’s feet.”
Nary a Lego in sight...
Now I've gotta go sniff me some chicken feet! ;-)
RépondreSupprimer-Marla
Not sure I'd be game for that... ;-)
RépondreSupprimerI'd love to see that photo of dashing Octavian and devastatingly gorgeous Denyse at the prom. I wish I had a stronger olfactory memory of vintage Kadine -- I only smelled it that one time, sticking my head into the microwave oven device at the Guerlain mothership. As I recall, it was a lovely, although eclipsed at the time for me by Cachet Jaune.
RépondreSupprimerJarvis, I like to think of us as The Avengers of Perfumeland! Kadine is in the same family as L'Origan, though built on a base of Après l'Ondée. I'm afraid my Femme made it cower a bit, so I had to keep sniffing at O's neck, which thank God is quite acceptable behaviour in the business! I had my decant of Femme with me... and *because* it was Mathilde Laurent, I let her spray it inside her purse.
RépondreSupprimerOoh là là, I am sure you and Octavian cut quite the figure, would love to have been there to witness that. Sounds like a good evening all around... champagne and perfume! Although the choices of Belle d'Opium and Bleu de Chanel are extremely uninspired...at least you and Octavian showed some flair!
RépondreSupprimerTara, it was great (and slightly tipsy) fun. Perfumers are often very passionate about their work, and very touched to find people willing to discuss it as an art. Which of course O and I both were!
RépondreSupprimerThanks for the news.
RépondreSupprimerIn a way, it's quite comforting (and I use the word perversely) that Blee and Belle won: if Paris can't get its choices right, then I feel less aggrieved by London picking Bleu as its FiFi winner.
I think Like This is a very worthy winner, and I should think ELdO will be grateful for the recoginition... or will they get itchy feet at the thought of joining the establishment?
Persolaise, Belle and Bleu were the result of a nationwide public online vote, and as they probably had the biggest ad campaigns... there you go.
RépondreSupprimerAnd the people at ELO are absolutely delighted, c'mon! It was funny because Octavian and I came in at the same time as Etienne de Swardt and his team, but of course we couldn't say a thing... I'll be interviewing Mathilde Bijaoui this week, so stay tuned!